I think I was too dumbstruck by the chutzpah to say anything but "okay."

I did once go off on a lady in line at the market -- same place, in fact. Same time of day, after work, long line (and this ain't the burbs, people -- forget a whole row of checkers with scanners, this place has two registers and price tags) and after waiting forever the woman in front of me turned and said, "I forgot something, will you hold my place in line?"

I said, "I think you need to ask the permission of the twelve people behind you, too, and in fact, I think my answer is going to be 'no' because I don't think I quite understand why the rest of us should be made to wait while you finish your shopping. Why should we have to stand in line longer because of your lack of organization? Get your thing and get back in line and let the rest of us go home."

For some reason I find it easier to be nice to stupid old people than stupid young people.

This also reminds me of a little elevator problem we had in my building the other day. The four of us were getting ready to go out, and for some reason the elevator just wouldn't come off the first floor. We schlepped the kids and cargo down to the ground floor to find two mid-twenties girls in excercise clothes holding the elevator door open to talk to each other. This particularly cranked me up because there is a fitness center on the first floor of our building.

I've always found it odd that people take the elevator up one flight of stairs to go excercise. Are we really thinking this through people?

Anyway, I'd like to think I was still acceptably polite when I confronted her. She did apologize, so it ended up decently.

I agree with Matthew. It is much easier to be polite to old stupid people rather than younger ones. After all, the older ones might just be suffering from a wee bit of dementia, poor dears. I'd have let the old lady go ahead of me too ... :)